Tom Finneran: Today’s Trio: the Patriots, Marriage, and Sex

Marriage, money, and everything in between is coming under ever-increasing scrutiny.

The Patriots will win this Sunday out in Denver. Take it to the bank. The endless and unanswerable question of who is the better quarterback—Tom Brady or Peyton Manning—overlooks the fact that the Patriots are a more resilient team, better coached, better prepared, and ideally suited to play from the role of underdog. The team simply loves the psychological role of playing David against Goliath. And any team that has Tom Brady calling signals has quite a slingshot in its hands. Watch out, Goliath.

We have a weekend of interesting playoff games. The four teams still standing are the four best teams in the league. That has been apparent since mid-November. There are no Cinderella teams this year, teams who have caught the favors of the football gods and ridden on improbable twists and turns to reach the finals. Instead, this year, we have four very good football teams, teams which we thought would be among the best during preseason and which have overcome the bad breaks, bad calls, and inevitable injuries of every NFL season. It’s been a long season. Let the real games begin.

Oh yeah, players to watch...number 12, of course. Logan Mankins too. He is one rough tough customer. Chandler Jones. He’s a superb athlete, fast, strong, and smart, just hitting his prime. Rob Ninkovich is another rugged hombre, a real disruptor. And Stephen Gostkowski, kicking at that altitude? He might kick a couple of sixty-yarders on Sunday.

Then it’s off to the Super Bowl for New England once again. They’ll have to watch out for the 49ers. I think they’re the best of the bunch. Enjoy the game.

On marriage

Marriage, the most important social arrangement and institution in the history of mankind, has been under ferocious assault for more than fifty years. For a great article on marriage, poverty, and “income inequality”, see Ari Fleischer’s recent column, How to Fight Income Inequality: Get Married.

Stark raving mad gender studies majors will undoubtedly attack Mr. Fleischer’s column as evidence of the “oppressive patriarchy”. They might rather consider the real facts of real life. They might even consider ending the celebration and glorification of single parenthood. There is precious little to celebrate or glorify in social arrangements which inform a father of his irrelevance or a child of his lesser importance. The statistics cited by Mr. Fleischer are staggering in their import. Not surprisingly, the poverty rate for married families is encouragingly low. To even less surprising effect, the poverty rate for unmarried or single parent families is appallingly high. Here’s where the real war on women is occurring.

As the movie, music, and television industries continue to assault women and degrade marriage, it’s a wonder that feminist organizations do not wage all-out boycotts of their depraved products. Might we for once in our lifetimes agree that the sexualization of our children, their clothes, and our culture is to be shunned by all? Forget about the verbal antics of Limbaugh or Maddow and their imitators. Those are sideshows to a war that should be fought and can be won. And a true social and cultural emphasis on school first, marriage second, and children third would go a very long way to addressing the poverty of our time.

On sex

Charles Blow’s recent column in the New York Times, Sex Is Not Our Problem, addresses related social and cultural concerns. Upon my first reading of his column, I was prepared to take great issue with his conclusion and state most emphatically that he is absolutely wrong and that sex, teen and pre-teen and non-commital sex, is precisely our problem. In what appears to be an effort to seem nuanced and sophisticated, Mr. Blow misses the opportunity to condemn in most emphatic terms the tidal wave of inappropriate sexual activity in America. Come on Charles, let’s be judgemental here. It’s wrong, obviously wrong, and we should not meekly accept it as inevitable. Perhaps Mr. Fleischer and Mr. Blow can be persuaded to have a debate about the issue and its destructive effects.

Two truly cringeworthy utterances appear in Charles’ column. First, his reference to the “pathology of patriarchy” is a politically correct bow to the nonsense of our age. If Charles truly believes that “patriarchy” is a problem in American society, then why surrender the opportunity to be critical—i.e., judgemental—about reckless males and their sexual conduct? Feel free to cast some shame here. It’s long overdue. And citing “complex areas of causation” is a cop-out. Marriage must have primacy and all of us should say so in chorus.

Finally, Charles talks about us “forcing boys to adhere to a perilously reading of masculinity which becomes a form of “oppression all dressed up as awesomeness”. Huh? Speak for yourself Charles. No son or grandson of mine will ever be forced to adhere to such narrow paths. Of course the “oppression/awesomeness” quote comes from a college professor, no doubt tenured. And this is what you pay $60,000 a year for in tuition. My God, what a rip-off. But that’s a topic for another day...

November 23, 1984

BC v. Miami

There could not have been a more unlikely superstar and there could not have been a bigger stage to pull off the most dramatic win when BC beat the defending National Champions. Quarterback Doug Flutie put on the best show - maybe ever -- in college football.

Flutie threw for 474 yards and 4 touchdowns and the last TD was to Gerard Phelan on the final play - maybe the most exciting play ever in sports.

October 13, 2013

First, the Patriots upset the undefeated New Orleans Saints with a 70 yard last minute drive that saw the Patriots score with just 5 seconds to steal a 30-27 win. The Saints had numerous opportunities to put the game away.

Then, the Boston Red Sox in Game Two of the ALCS at home rallied from a 5 run deficit in the 6th inning and came back on a David Ortiz grand slam to tie and a 9th inning hit to win. The Red Sox had lost Game One of the series 1-0 and were on the verge in Game Two of losing any chance of winning the series.

October 20, 2004

Red Sox Come Back from Down 0-3, to Beat Yankees in ACLS

The Red Sox were looking at another sad loss to the New York Yankees three games to zero and down to 3-4 in the ninth inning and down to their last three outs. The Sox scratched a run off a stolen base by Dave Roberts and a clutch hit by Bill Mueller to tie the game 4-4 and send it into extra innings.

In the 12th inning, the Red Sox scored two runs off a walk off homer by David Ortiz.